EDITORIAL: Short takes on scouting blues, hot-sauce gunfights and retirement, Jimmy Buffett-style

March 11--Taxing Americans' patience

This week's marathon hearings that slammed the Republican health care act forward in the U.S. House provided many of the sorts of moments that your civics teacher never warned you about. Sadly, two of them came courtesy of the bistate congressional delegation.

Rep. John Shimkus, R-Collinsville, complained during a hearing of the Energy and Commerce Committee about mandates in the Obama administration's Affordable Care Act. "What about men having to purchase prenatal care?" Shimkus demanded.

The hearing room began to buzz. A puzzled Shimkus said, "I'm just ... is that not correct? And should they?"

Well, only if you believe in the concept of insurance, where all health care risks are pooled, be it prenatal care or for prostate cancer or heart attacks that men suffer far more often than women.

Speaking of women, Rep. Jason Smith, R-Salem, whose district takes in parts of Jefferson County, was concerned about the Affordable Care Act's tax on tanning salons, which women patronize far more frequently than men. The sun causes more skin cancer than tanning beds, Smith said, "so why have they not proposed a tax on the sun?"

Sigh and double-sigh.

But the winner of Capitol Hill's "Mr. Warmth Award" goes to Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, who went on CNN Tuesday morning to peddle a version of the Republican mantra, "poor Americans need to make smarter choices."

Chaffetz said, "Americans have choices. And they've got to make a choice. And so, maybe rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and they want to go spend hundreds of dollars on that, maybe they should invest it in their own health care. They've got to make those decisions for themselves."

Cost of fancy new iPhone? About $800, plus monthly fees. Cost of individual health policy? About $393 per month, or $4,617 per year, plus if you actually need the policy, deductibles of about $4,000 a year.

Triple sigh.

Hankering for a thin mint?

Then don't go to the O'Fallon, Mo., Walmart, which has yanked the welcome mat for all forms of solicitation, including Girl Scout troops selling cookies, following an altercation at the store. Girl Scouts were not involved in the disturbance.

Forbidding solicitors at popular locations is detrimental to groups that depend on community support to help finance their undertakings. Last summer, the Schnuck supermarket chain was criticized when it banned solicitors as a labor union dispute simmered. The chain later allowed Salvation Army bell ringers at area stores.

A spokeswoman for Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri said participating in the cookie program helps girls develop leadership and life skills. The Walmart decision adds up to disappointed cooker sellers, as well as buyers.

All wrong at Eat-Rite

The unfortunate story this week about James Bommarito, 51, prompts the question of which is worse if your father owns Tony's, the only former five-star restaurant in town: Eating at the Eat-Rite Diner? Getting into a dispute over passing the hot sauce? Shooting a patron in the face while rolling around fighting on the diner's parking lot at 4 a.m.?

An even better question is why Bommarito wasn't charged in the fracas until Wednesday, three months after the shooting occurred, as reported by the Post-Dispatch's Christine Byers. The Clayton man was charged with first-degree assault, armed criminal action and unlawful use of a weapon.

Flip-flops not optional

Never has the lyric "wastin' away again in Margaritaville" seemed so ominous. Jimmy Buffett, the bard of beach bums, is opening a chain of retirement communities to be called Latitude Margaritaville -- named after his signature song "Margaritaville" (which, sorry, will now be playing in your head all day).

What's next? The Rolling Stones present "Satisfaction Estates"?

Buffett, 70, already has a chain of hotels and resorts popular with aging Parrotheads. So why not give them a place to live out their retirement years, complete with all the Del Boca Vista amenities like golf, tennis, shuffleboard, pools and neighbors like Morty Seinfeld.

The first 7,000-home community will open this fall in Daytona Beach. Units start in the low $200s. You have to be at least 55 to qualify, but why would anyone under 55 want to?

If you build it, they will come

We've gotten so used to lamenting the steady flight of major corporations from the St. Louis central business district to the suburbs that we did a double take when reading the news that Microsoft is moving out of its CityPlace office in Creve Coeur to open shop in the Central West End. Even better, the company will boost its existing 60-employee staff to a total of 150 in its new offices.

Microsoft will be the anchor tenant at a new $55 million, 180,000-square-foot complex in the Cortex technology district. The move marks a "remarkable vote of confidence and validation" for Cortex, says Hank Webber, the Cortex board chair and vice chancellor at Washington University.

As the Post-Dispatch's Jacob Barker reported Thursday, the district also will see a new 150-room Aloft hotel. It would have been sweeter to celebrate this as a clean recognition by investors that St. Louis is attracting business based entirely on its merits and allure as a technology hub. But, alas, a $9.5 million tax increment financing deal appears to be what sealed the deal. Either way, St. Louis emerges a winner.

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